Jive and GoToMeeting Ready to Dance

Can LogMeIn’s plan for 2019 product integration and international expansion plan deliver its aims for UCC leadership position?

3
LogMeIn Jive Ready Dance
Unified Communications

Published: March 8, 2019

Andy Cakebread

Just over a year on from LogMeIn’s announcement of its intention to acquire fast-growing UCaaS vendor Jive, a recent earnings call gave a clear indication of developments since the acquisition confirmed in April 2018.

Contributing $700 million, UCC is LogMeIn’s largest business and President and CEO, Bill Wagner, is clear where the company is headed: “Our goal is simple, we want to be the defining leader in the UCC, identity and digital engagement markets and we are making the prudent investments and structural changes needed to capture the opportunity in front of us.”

LogMeIn announced an additional $75 million investment in growth products, aimed at accelerating its growing momentum that saw Jive’s 31% year-on-year growth 55% higher than in 2017.  Wagner confirmed: “Almost two-thirds will be used to accelerate our UCC strategy with a combination of our GoToMeeting business and Jive” and “allow us to more aggressively ramp our international sales capacity and fund marketing programs in support of our new product launches.”

“Convergence is driving this market and LogMeIn has the broadest product portfolio, everything from a lightweight tool designed for small businesses to a collaboration platform that supports thousands on a single event to a highly scalable cloud-based telephony offering”

“While competitors are scrambling to build their own or buy companies that strengthen their portfolio, we already have all the ingredients to deliver the next generation of integrated communications and collaboration solutions for companies of all sizes.” Bill Wagner, LogMeIn President and CEO

LogMeIn to Launch New Integrated UCC Solution

Could a crowded collaboration market be entering a defining phase? Convergence is a common theme, and recent developments have seen less brand convergence and more portfolio convergence, as offerings become more integrated and simplified. Microsoft with Teams and Cisco, bringing Spark and Webex together as Webex Teams, illustrate this.  LogMeIn, with a collection of “ingredients” (Jive, GoToMeeting, Join.me, OpenVoice) can be expected to join the ‘teams’ race following Wagner’s remark about the success of the 2018 GoToMeeting and Jive bundle being “a precursor to our integrated product we’ll release here in 2019”.

What is relatively clear, but exactly when has yet to be confirmed.

Can LogMeIn step up and take the battle to the more established brands? Moving from Challenger in 2017 to Leader in Gartner’s 2018 MQ for Meetings Solutions is one indicator with LogMeIn now clearly heading for Cisco, Microsoft and Zoom.  Another insight is the confidence placed in a large and diverse customer base that had a second-half renewal rate of 82%.  A responsive and loyal core of customers is a distinct advantage for gaining critical mass and brand acceptance for any new integrated solution.  It is also vital in delivering early results.

Fine Dining or Self-serve Buffet?

How effective LogMeIn will be in turning the heads of net-new customers remains to be seen.  Having all the ingredients is one thing, whether these deliver fine-dining, or a self-serve buffet will no doubt become clearer very soon (according to the CEO), given that he says LogMeIn:

“expect to see early results of these investments in this year with growth increasing in the second half of 2019”

 

 

UCaaS
Featured

Share This Post